Disinfecting-cloth and method of making same.



UNITED STaTns Trice.

PATENT ALFRED JUST, OF MANNHEIM, GERMANY.

olsmFEctmc crori-i AND METHOD OF MAKING SAME.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters latent 0. 688,859, dated December 17, 1901. Application filed August 17, 1900. Serial No, 27,155. (No specimens.)

To aZZ whom it may concern.-

Be it known that I, ALFRED JUST, a subject of the Emperor of Germany, residing at Mannheim, Grand Duchy of Baden, German Em pire,have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Disinfecting -I-Iandkerchiefs and Processes of Producing the Same, of which the following is a specification.

My invention relates to disinfecting-handkerchiefs-that is to say,handkerchiefs which are provided with a disinfectant; and the object of my invention is to produce an efficiently-disinfected handkerchief.

To these ends my invention consists in the disinfecting-handkerchief and process of pro ducing the same hereinafter described and claimed. It is quite well known that diseases of the air-passages of the nose, throat, and lungs are communicated by contagion from handkerehiefs used by persons having these diseases, and it is further well known that diseases of these characters grow and spread in the air-passages by the continued use of the ordinary handkerchiefs. In fact, very often when these diseases exist only in the nose they will spread to the throat, larynx, and lungs and develop very rapidly by contagion from a much-used handkerchief. In fact, the danger of the handkerchief has been fully recognized by the medical profession. Efforts have been made to minimize the danger by attempting to produce disinfectinghandkerchiefs for use by tuberculose and catarrhal persons. It has also been proposed to antiseptize the handkerchiefs by boiling and subsequent treatment with formalin. In all these cases, however, the experimenters have failed signally from various causes.

By my invention I produce a handkerchief which will efficiently solve the problem in that it is efficient for the purpose intended and does not offend the esthetic sense of the public, as a highly pungent or discolored cloth would do. It is further to be considered that as a handkerchief is to be used very often the fiber thereof should not be attacked by the disinfecting chemicals, so that the life of the fabric would be shortened. Therefore the handkerchief should not be dipped into the disinfecting solution nor saturated nor should the disinfecting chemicals be united with the fabric in the form of powder.

ever, that other modes of bringing the dis infecting substance in a gaseous state into contact with the handkerchiefs may be employed.

The following is a distinct and definite statement of one mode of carrying out the process invented by me. This is given by way of example merely Without intending to limit myself thereto. The handkerchiefs produced will fully answer the purpose for a case of light catarrh as Well as for a heavy chronic or tuberculose case. In carrying out this eX-' ample of my process I take the following: Menthol, ten parts; terpinol, twenty parts; eucalyptol, twenty parts; creolin, five parts. To this mixturel add forty-five parts of ninetysix-per-cent. spirit. The whole is then put in an air-tight container and heated. The gaseous products arising are conducted into an adjoining air-tight container in which the cloths to be disinfected are hung up. When the cloths are saturated with the disinfection-gas, they are taken out, folded, and packed airtight in desired quantities. Prior to this they may be perfumed, so as to disguise the odor which the disinfection naturally develops.

Having described my invention, what I claim, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, 1s

1. The process of producing disinfectingcloths, consisting in the dissolving of menthol, terpinol, eucalyptol, creolin in a solvent in substantially the proportions specified, heating this solution and subjecting the cloths to the gases or vapors of this heated solution.

2. A clean disinfecting-cloth saturated with the vapors of asolution consisting of ten parts menthol, twenty parts terpinol, twenty parts euealyptol and five parts creolin, as herein described.

O. WENDELM'UTH, JACOB ADRIAN. 

